change fince thofe ceremonies were eftablished; and that some of the most respectable of the spectators confidered as perfectly frivolous many things which formerly had been held as facred. A man of good fense may seem to lay the greatest weight on ceremonies which he himself confiders. as ridiculous, provided he thinks the people, in whofe fight he goes through them, are impreffed with a conviction of their importance; but if he knows that fome of the beholders are entirely of a different way of thinking, he will be ftrongly tempted to evince, by fome means or other, that he defpifes the fooleries he performs, as much as any of them. This, in all probability, was the cafe with Ganganelli ; who, befides, was an enemy to fraud and hypocrify of every kind. But, however remifs he may have been with regard to the etiquette of his fpiritual functions, every body acknowledges his diligence and activity in promoting the temporal good of his

fubjects.

fubjects. He did all in his power to revive trade, and to encourage manufactures and He built no

induftry of

every kind.

churches, but he repaired the roads all over the ecclefiaftical ftate: he reftrained the malevolence of bigots, removed abfurd prejudices, and promoted fentiments of charity and good-will to mankind in general, without excepting even heretics. His enemies, the Jefuits, with an intention to make him odious in the eyes of his own fubjects, gave him the name of the Proteftant Pope. If they fuppofed that this calumny would be credited, on account of the conduct above mentioned, they at once paid the highest compliment to the Pope and the Proteftant religion. The careless manner in which Ganganelli performed certain functions, and the general tenour of his life and fentiments, were lamented by politicians, as well as by bigots. However frivolous the former might think many ccremonies in themselves, they ftill confidered

them as of political importance, in fuch a government as that of Rome; and the Conclave held on the death of the late Pope, are thought to have been in fome degree influenced by fuch confiderations in choofing his fucceffor. The prefent Pope, before he was raised to that dignity, was confidered as a firm believer in all the tenets of the Roman Church, and a strict and fcrupulous obferver of all its injunctions and ceremonials. As his pretenfions, in point of family, fortune, and connexions, were fmaller than thofe of most of his brother cardinals, it is the more probable that he owed his elevation to this part of his character, which rendered him a proper person to check the progrefs of abuses that had been entirely neglected by the late Pope; under whofe administration freethinking was faid to have been countenanced, Proteftantifm in general regarded with diminished abhorrence, and the Calvinifts, in particular, treated with a degree

of

of indulgence, to which their inveterate. enmity to the church of Rome gave them no title. Several inftances of this are enumerated, and one in particular, which, I dare fay, you will think a ftronger proof of the late Pope's good fenfe and good humour, than of that negligence to which his enemies imputed it.

A Scotch prefbyterian having heated his brain, by reading the Book of Martyrs, the cruelties of the Spanish Inquifition, and the Hiftories of all the perfecutions that ever were raised by the Roman Catholics against the Proteftants, was feized with a dread, that the fame horrors were juft about to be renewed. This terrible idea disturbed his imagination day and night; he thought of nothing but racks and scaffolds; and, on one occafion, he dreamt that there was a continued train of bonfires, with a tar-barrel and a Proteftant in each, all the way from Smithfield to St. Andrews.

He

He communicated the anxiety and diftress of his mind to a worthy fenfible clergyman who lived in the neighbourhood. This gentleman took great pains to quiet his fears, proving to him, by ftrong and obvious arguments, that there was little or no danger of fuch an event as he dreaded. These reasonings had a powerful effect while they were delivering, but the impreffion did not laft, and was always effaced by a few pages of the Book of Martyrs. As foon as the clergyman remarked this, he advised the relations to remove that, and every book which treated of perfecution or martyrdom, entirely out of man's reach. This was done accordingly, and books of a lefs gloomy complexion were fubftituted in their place; but as all of them formed a strong contraft with the colour of his mind, he could not bear their perufal, but betook himself to the ftudy of the Bible, which was the only book of his ancient library which had

the

poor

been